the balance

On this page, I will go over the balance of character traits from a philosophical perspective; virtue.

Sometimes, it can be hard to balance our character traits that drive our action on a daily basis. The image below is Aristotle’s concept of the Golden Mean, virtue; a helpful system to achieve balance in our character traits.

If you’re someone who prefers to live a balanced life in society, then acting based on the Golden Mean with practical wisdom will do just that for you. Extremes or deficiencies in character are unhelpful if your goal is to cultivate harmony with everyone. Think of these character traits as sugar. Too much of it could lead to negative consequences such as diabetes—which isn’t helpful if your goal is to be a healthy functioning human being. A deficiency in sugar could lead to lightheadedness and weakness—which also isn’t helpful for the same reason. So having a balanced level of sugar in your body is helpful because it doesn’t cause any negative outcomes.

Take a moment to reflect on how an excess or deficiency of character traits looks like for you. What kind of results did that yield for you?

What are you trying to accomplish when you interact with society and what kind of intentions would you like to set in order to achieve that?